Don Quixote, the book that the old gringo says he intends to read some time, was written by Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes Saave-dra and published in 1615. It is the classic story of idealism and of standing up to unbeatable odds.

The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce is available in a 1985 paperback, edited by Ernest Jerome Hopkins. Among the most notable pieces referred to in Fuentes's novel are "A Horseman in the Sky," about a Union soldier who kills his father, a member of the Confederacy; and Bierce's most famous work, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."

Mexico's most honored contemporary poet was the late Nobel Prize laureate Octavio Paz. The most comprehensive volume of his work is 1987's The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz 1957-1987. This volume contains both English and Spanish versions of his poems.